Event Format and Agenda

Format

Asia Source is designed to create opportunities for practical learning, skill sharing, and community building. The emphasis is on a workshop and camp style environment as a opposed to a conference style environment. The venue which has been chosen reflects this, it is a small artists community on the outskirts of Bangalore. The intention is to create an informal learning environment where participants can focus on learning from each other, trying out new skills and forming new relationships.

Because Asia Source is a community building event - in the spirit of free and open source software - participants will be expected to contribute to activities and the running of the event.

Agenda

The agenda will provide a range of hands-on and more conceptual sessions for participants to choose from. During the seven days, participants will be challenged to both share their skills and learn from others. Sessions will take the form of structured and formalised sessions within a particular selected track at times and of more informal skillshare and peer-to-peer learning at others.

Four main tracks will run through the event, participants will be asked to choose a more structured main track to follow through the morning sessions, but will be free to select from a range of peer-to-peer learning and skillshare sessions in the afternoons. The themes are:

• "FLOSSophy" for NGOs
• Migration and Access
• Tools for content and communication
• Localisation

"FLOSSophy" for NGOs

These sessions will provide an important conceptual backdrop for the practical sessions. They will include;

1. A creative session introducing participants to intellectual property rights (IPR), patent issues, and creative commons licenses. This will be done as an interactive session in collaboration with the artist-in-resident at Visthar and members of the Alternative Law Forum in Bangalore.
2. Tips, techniques and strategies session discussing how to conduct FOSS advocacy when working with NGOs. During this session participants will look at examples from other regions as well as other sectors such as government and education.
3. An interactive ice-breaker called - "spectogram" where participants will be asked to physically position themselves in response to specific questions such as "Is it ok to copy and distribute music - always, sometimes or never" and then invited to discuss ideas.
4. Insights in to creating "cost benefit analysis" models for using FOSS. This will be done partly through discussion, and partly through looking at existing research and analysis projects, such as the "buyers guide" created by LINC -USA, the Open Source Comparison study by Bridges and SchoolNet Africa, and the Total Cost of Ownership study by Open Research, South Africa.

Migration and Access

In this track participants will cover the full cycle of migrating a small to medium sized NGO to FOSS. This will be done by working through scenarios; a medium sized NGO office with its own server, and a small NGO office with a few older computers. Throughout the week participants will move from the initial discussion and planning stage, through to implementation, and in to maintenance and support.

This track is particularly aimed at those who are advising on and implementing FOSS as technical support to an organisation. It is a step-by-step training and participants will be asked to follow the entire track. The sessions will use the framework curricula developed out of previous source events by Tactical Tech and one of its lead trainers - Tomas Krag from Wireless.dk. This will be the first full "testing" of this curricula which will later be published and distributed under an open content license.

Tools for Content and Communication

This track will focus on how to use free and open source versions of tools that NGOs need to gather, store, share and publish information. The emphasis will be on looking at these tools from a context and project perspective, considering both the strategy of how to use them as well as the technical aspect. Many practical examples and case studies will be used to explore possibilities and participants will be encouraged to rethink the use of existing tools for project purposes. Participants will be asked to identify proprietary content tools used by non-profit groups and during the week suggestions and recommendations of FOSS alternatives will be invited in return.

Sessions will range from tools for gathering and analysing information, such as database, GIS and analysis tools, through to tools for effective out-reach, advocacy and campaign coordination, including content management systems, blogging, SMS messaging and group communications tools. In each case factors such as approach, style, timing and use-scenarios will be discussed combined with opportunities for more hands-on learning.

As the diversity and sophistication of FOSS is constantly growing and changing, attention will also be payed to collectively discovering new FOSS alternatives to proprietary tools, identifying niches and shortfallings in the FOSS world. Looking in to thorny issues such as the possibilities of video, audio and imaging software, and introducing participants to localisation and customisation possibilities of certain small scale applications. Extra sessions will also be available on more specialised subjects such as security for high risk groups.

Localisation

Participants will receive an introduction to localisation from small applications to desktops and distributions. Drawing on existing localisation networks in Asia, participants will be led in discussions ranging from meta issues of regional context and language, through to the more detailed ins and outs of localisation projects such as standards, font support, dictionaries and spellcheckers.

Participants will work with facilitators experienced in localisation. During the week they will work together to localise a chosen small scale application. Tips and techniques will be shared on how to set up such a project, share work on an initiative amongst a group of volunteers, as well as how to cope with software updates. This track will cover both the more technical and non-technical roles within a localisation initiative.

During the sessions facilitators will test out and utilise two specific FOSS localisation guides currently being collaboratively produced by groups in Africa, Asia and Europe in conjunction with Tactical Tech and Mahiti.org. Its content will lead out of a localisation "gurus" meeting to be held in Poland, November 2004.